Shelf Life of a Hero
by TricksterSherlock
Summary: Soulmate AU where tattoos relating to someone's soulmate start appearing in the early teen years, and Steve and Bucky refuse to admit that they're each other's soulmates for about eighty years. Written for a stucky secret santa. Warnings for mention of torture and suicide. Oneshot.


Shelf Life of a Hero

Not many people remember the exact date that their first tattoo appeared, but Bucky did. July fourth, nineteen thirty-two. In the evening. If he were watching closely, he would have seen the very first mark appear on his left wrist. But he was distracted at that time with the Independence Day celebrations that lit up the sky and shone off the glass windows of the new skyscrapers, as he and Steve watched, grinning. A few seconds after each flash came the bang, delayed by the laws of physics but still loud enough that he could feel it in his ribcage.

So it was only later that night that he noticed, when he'd wished Steve one last happy birthday and the mark had already become a smudge.

He had a soulmate. Not everyone did, but he had one. Bucky didn't get to sleep that night. A young fourteen, he was far too entranced watching the smudge blossom into the image of fireworks, like those he'd seen that night with Steve.

Somewhere out in America, in the darkness of this warm July, someone else had been watching the Independence Day fireworks with enough ardent awe that the image was seared onto Bucky's skin and soul.

Steve's first tattoo appeared on the back of his neck a few months later, and it was Bucky who spotted the markings. The branches of a tree were slowly unfurling on his pale skin. It was old and strong and the bark was etched with initials of long ago lovers, and it was familiar.

'You have a tree on your neck.'

_My tree. Steve, you have my tree on your neck_.

They hadn't yet met the last time Bucky had seen that tree. His childhood in the suburbs, jazz and lemonade. They didn't have much money, but they had money enough, and young Bucky would rest at noon beneath the filtered light of his tree. Alone, with a book etched with words he couldn't understand until years later. Books on science, and at that time his family had enough that he could believe there was education in his future that would decode all this for him.

'I have a…?'

Steve's face changed from bewilderment to astonishment to wonder. Bucky could see in his face the same emotions that he'd felt the first time he saw the fireworks. Except now he knew who his soulmate was- kind and daring and, really, who else could it possibly have been? But those were unwelcome thoughts- and Steve would be looking for a girl he'd never met.

Bucky wouldn't tell him. Maybe Steve would work it out for himself but Bucky wasn't going to be the one to let him know. And he certainly would not be falling in love. Steve was great and all, but he was _Steve_. His best friend. There must have been a mistake somewhere.

So he'd keep quiet and let this play out however it would, and he'd cover up the New York skyline that was the next to appear on his arm as Steve sketched it out a few blocks away in charcoal on paper. Except…

Steve Rogers had the bluest eyes Bucky had ever seen.

It was a thought that came to his mind in a soft American fall when he was sixteen. The burnished leaves didn't curl around these sepia streets; the nearest trees were a good walk away and neither of them were in the mood for waking. They were in the mood for chatting, though, and at some point Steve turned his head and the sunlight hit his eyes just so.

Bucky liked his own eyes, blue as they were. It was the twilight blue of a stormy evening, all gunmetal and grey. Steve's were pigments of pure dye, undiluted and clean. He felt abruptly more protective of Steve on the sudden, irrational thought that the colour would drain away with any tears.

But of course this line of thought was ridiculous. It was unwelcome and it was pushed aside, but the outlines of it stayed later that night as he glanced at his growing collection of tattoos. He adored them all, reluctantly, and he knew them all. And whether he wanted them to or not, they all belonged to Steve.

* * *

><p>One of the first things that Steve did in the twenty-first century was to seek out somewhere private with a mirror. He had to check.<p>

He already knew what would happen, but he still felt his heart sink when he saw what had become of his tattoos.

By the time he'd hit the ice they'd covered most of his back, but now all that was left was the faint sketch where the colours used to be. He'd seen marks like these before, of course, usual on people much older than him. The tattoos start to fade when the soulmate forgets the thing they represented, and Steve's soulmate had no life left to remember anything. He'd never even found out who they belonged to.

Except he had. Part of him, at least, knew he'd lost his soulmate the moment Bucky fell from that train. He knew for a while, he supposed, but he'd ignored the thought when they were friends, and he'd ignored it when he met Peggy, and he was ignoring it now.

He didn't have a soulmate. That was all. They'd both been sacrificed to history.

* * *

><p>Bucky had stumbled through the war half-asleep and half terrified. There was water constantly seeping through his boots and shells overhead and mud. Yelling and sickness and gunfire. Blood seeping sluggishly outwards in the freezing night. Soulmate tattoos on the arm of a lifeless private. That image stayed with him in the days he'd run a gentle finger along the colours woven into the skin of his left arm, promising to himself and to Steve- wherever he was- that he would make it home.<p>

Every letter he wrote to Steve left three or four attempted letters, screwed up and thrown out, admitting that they were soulmates.

It had been a while since a new tattoo appeared, but now there was another one. A shield shape in red, white and blue. When he first made out the stars and stripes pattern he couldn't resist rolling his eyes. The next to appear looked like a simplified wing in white, outlined in thick navy blue. He'd never felt so isolated from his best friend then he did then, leaning back against the cold trench wall and struggling to understand the meaning.

_Stevie, Stevie what are you up to?_

'Sergeant Barnes.'

_Sergeant James Barnes. 107__th__._

He had to fight the war. He had to make it through and get home to- He had a soulmate. He had to-

No. That was before. He's been freed by the man. The one with the blue eyes…

'Sergeant if you could focus?'

Bluest eyes he'd ever seen. The tattoos were still on his arm, faded now. They say your tattoos begin to fade when your soulmate forgets what they were about. Maybe they faded when your soulmate forgets you. He'd seen the outlines like scars on widows' arms, but not like this. It looked like ice was forming over the fireworks, the sketch of New York, the etchings of someone else's soul. It looked like bitter Christmas frost was claiming them all.

Bluest eyes he would ever see again.

'Sergeant Barnes, are you going to cooperate today?'

He wasn't a prisoner of war anymore; he was an experiment, sitting on the edge of the chair he would soon be strapped into.

'Steve.'

The man in the white coat frowned as Bucky struggled through his foggy mind to find what that named connected to. Blue eyes, gold hair, black lines sketched on white paper. Steve.

Saying his name out loud was like volunteering for more torture, but at the same time it brought him the courage to take it. So he focussed on the pictures on his left arm and consoled himself with the thought that no matter what they did, if he remembered Steve, they couldn't break him.

'Captain Rogers is dead.'

Bucky didn't even look up from his arm. They were lying. There may be some sort of ice on his tattoos, but it didn't mean that Steve was dead.

'Sergeant Barnes.' the man said, and there was the sound of rusting paper. Bucky traced the outline of the tiny white wing with his eyes. That's where he'd worn that symbol on his coat. He was a Howling Commando, and his captain would find him.

'James.'

More rustling, and a greyish newspaper dropped on his lap. The front page showed a grainy photograph in cheap ink of the two of them. Him and Steve, together, and laughing at something Bucky would have sold his soul to remember. But the headline in black read "Tragic Death of National Heroes".

_It's a lie_. Of course it was a lie. He could laugh at it if he could only ignore the pounding in his ears._ Steve can't be dead. _And now his breathing was unsteady, but that didn't change anything. _ It's fake. It's made up. Steve's alive. Steve's-_

'It's very real.'

It took Bucky a moment to realise that he'd been speaking out loud. He glanced back to his arm and then to his captor's face, 'No.'

'You have nothing to fight for.'

'No.' he said again, much louder. They would taste his defiance in the back of their throats if he had to drive it there by force.

'I think it's time you gave up.'

Force it was. He yelled the word 'No!' and the next moment one of the agents was thrown against the opposite wall and fell to the floor, unconscious or dead. An alarm was sounding somewhere as Bucky's tattooed hand found another one's neck. But the man he most wanted to kill had vanished out the door. He would fight to get to him. He would fight to be free. But more were coming and he hadn't even made it out of the room yet.

He kept fighting until he was overcome and strapped, yelling and struggling with everything he had, into the chair.

And then the man in the white coat re-entered. Muttered something to another agent. A few minutes later there were doctors, and metal instruments, and all he could do was bite his lip and try not to scream until it was over.

When he woke up his left arm was made of metal and he remembered nothing.

* * *

><p>Steve had lost everything. This was a fact, seared into him mind from repetition. He'd lost everything. He'd lost everything. And yet…<p>

There was a red mark on his skin. It could have been just any red mark, but that was two hours ago when he first noticed it. Since then in had grown, impossibly, and just as impossibly shaped itself until a red star marked his left arm as assured as if it had always been there. And Steve had watched, transfix and disbelieving, until he was running one finger over the outline.

'Steve?'

Startled, Steve jumped and hastened to pull his sleeve over his newest tattoo.

Natasha was standing in the doorway, eyebrows raised, and something that might have been the beginning of a smug look flicking up the corner of her lips.

'Hey.' Steve said, forcing himself to be natural even as he realised that it was useless.

'You've got a soulmate.' Natasha replied, apparently forgetting whatever it was she was originally going to say.

'No I don't.'

There was silence for a few moments. Natasha's expression made it clear that she wasn't buying it.

'Well, you have a tattoo,' she pointed out, 'so you have a soulmate.'

'No I don't.' Steve repeated, and this time he said it firmly enough that it was Natasha's turn to be startled. He hesitated before continuing, but he knew she wouldn't drop it otherwise, so he took a deep breath and admitted 'Not anymore.'

She didn't answer. Somewhat reluctantly, he turned around and tugged at the back of his shirt until the space between his shoulder blades could be seen through the collar. Etched on the skin, he knew, were the faded ghosts of his once bright tattoos, scars of a long-dead soul that was once connected to his own.

'Oh.'

'Yeah.'

He turned to face Natasha again, and caught her eyes flickering to the left sleeve where it covered the newest addition.

'Then how-'

'I don't know.'

A red star could mean anything. Steve later saw it on logos and signs and in art and every time his heart skipped, just a little. Nat asked if he knew who his soulmate was in the forties.

_Of course I did._

'No idea.'

'Liar.'

But it was almost a month later when the second appeared. It was there when he woke up in the morning, on the inside of his wrist. Red and harsh like a burning brand. Like a curse.

There was an awful, twisted feeling in the pit of his stomach from the moment he saw it.

The symbol of Hydra, now seared onto his soul.

* * *

><p><em>Who the hell is Bucky?<em>

The blond man wasn't fighting, just saying some stranger's name over and over. Beneath them twisted scraps of this ship were falling into the Potomac, blue grey and swirling below, and among them were the bright blood red and royal blue of the man's shield.

He could feel the wind on his face as he threw his weight into the fight. It was cold and foreign against the skin where the mask used to be. And still the man wasn't protecting himself.

'You're my friend.'

'You're my mission.'

Then they were both lying on the unstable glass. The man's head was hanging out over empty air as they sailed over the water far below. There was an untraceable rage keeping him attacking. All he knew was that this was wrong, the man was wrong, and each time he struck his face with his metal arm he punctuated it with a word yelled over the roar of the crashing ship, 'You. Are. My. Mission.'

Red blood and purple bruises against pale skin. He couldn't hit him anymore. There was something there that didn't come from the people who gave him orders.

'Then finish it, because I'm with you 'til the end of the line.'

It was real. He wasn't sure what it is, but it was there. Some sort of past. Loyalty. Friendship, maybe. Maybe these two enemies were once brothers in arms. Whatever it was, Bucky (for that was almost certainly his name) couldn't strike another blow if he wanted to.

He surveyed this blond man and felt a name rise to his mind. Mostly there was confusion and cold, pounding panic, but even as the ship fell from the sky there was one simple truth making itself known in Bucky's swirling head.

Steve Rogers still had the bluest eyes he had even seen.

* * *

><p>Steve woke up with the words <em>'til the end of the line<em> on the outside of his wrist. It was Bucky's handwriting, cruelly familiar and hurting like home.

He kept trying. He kept searching as the old tattoos, one by one, returned to vibrant technicolor. So Bucky was still out there, still alive, and slowly regaining his memories.

They kept getting closer. He could be traced through destroyed Hydra facilities at first, and then more subtle ways. Patterns and rumours in the intelligence community, mostly, but also through Natasha's take of what his next move would be. She'd never officially met Bucky Barnes, but she seemed to understand The Asset just fine.

They'd caught up to him- at least to his movements- a little over two weeks before on the Quebec border, but they were yet to manage to actually make contact. And now the three of them were gathered around a table on America's east while Natasha did something incomprehensible and probably illegal on a laptop.

'Will you calm down.' she said, finally breaking a tense silence.

'I am calm.'

'No you're not,' she replied, still typing, 'you're freaking out, I can feel it.'

That was true, though Steve had been trying his best to remain professional. He'd been so frustrated for so long and now… 'He's in this city.'

'And so are we.'

'And so is Hydra.' he pointed out, 'You said they were around, and tracking him down.'

She didn't even look up, 'Then we will follow Hydra to your boyfriend.'

'He's not my-'

There were a few seconds when the only sound was the tapping of keys.

'What happens if they get to him first?'

'Then we kill them.' Natasha said calmly. Sam, keeping quiet in the corner, nodded.

'But what happens if-'

'Steve.'

'I'm sorry, I'll stop.'

'No, I mean,' she gestured to the screen as if Steve would be able to understand what was on it, 'I've got Hydra activity. We should get there.'

* * *

><p>While Steve and co. were getting ready for a fight, Bucky- somewhere in Maryland or Virginia or one of those other states, probably- was being thrown into a café table.<p>

Winded, he turned his head to the alarmed café owner and gasped 'Tony Stark will pay for that.' before being dragged to his feet by his collar while the other agents tried to threaten him with pistols. That sort of threat wouldn't work. Not in this case. Not when being recaptured was the other option.

'Gentlemen-' he began, but whatever no doubt charming comment he was about to say was interrupted by him being punched in the jaw.

_Fine then_. If they wanted a fight-

The worst part was that Bucky didn't even have to think. He just took a backseat in his own mind and let _him_ take over. That… that thing. The asset.

Seconds later Bucky was left with three possibly dead Hydra agents and a bitter taste in his mouth. Blood was mixing with the broken glass on the floor- glasses of soda and water, he belatedly realised- and he felt sick. But it worked, and if it kept working enough then he could tell himself that one day he could turn it off for good.

He armed himself with the fallen agents' guns and planned his next move.

Out of the café door- no doubt someone was calling the police- and cut across the parking lot. He'd be out of sight just around the corner, he just had to-

Hydra would never send three agents to take him down without backup. He should have known, he should have seen this coming. But it was too late now; there were too many of them, appearing from cars and vans and fanning into a wide circle. They knew his strengths and his tactics so they kept out of his reach and let their numbers be their advantage. Armed. Willing to die. Well, they weren't the only ones.

Bucky could feel it all, the heat rising from the blacktop and the half-hearted breeze tugging at the ends of his hair. The glare of sunlight from the windshields of hot cars. All these sensations he was desperate to hold onto for as long as he could, because whatever happened he'd never let them take him alive.

The barrel of the gun he'd stolen settled under his chin. It seemed to fit there, in some strange way. One of the group said something trying to get him to stop, but he was beyond listening to words. There was the sound of his loud heartbeat as it fought to keep pumping, and there was the sound of the mantra running through his head, over and over.

_I want to live. I want to live._

Everything else was white noise, but he couldn't stop those words. It seemed so childish against the backdrop of this whole mess, so plain and desperate. The voice of a toddler pleading that this was unfair.

_I want to live. I want to live. I want_

And Steve had been standing in the light as Bucky turned to leave him for war.

'How can I? You're taking all the stupid with you?'

The uniform had sat uncomfortably on Bucky, like wearing someone else's skin. And then Steve had been saying goodbye the only way he knew how. It was too hard to just walk away.

So he'd walked back one last time, and the night had turned the bright blue eyes to darkness, and he thought of all the things he could say.

_You're amazing, Steve. You're the love of my life. You're my soulmate._

'You're a punk.'

Telling him wouldn't have helped anyone, not then when Bucky was leaving for war and might never come back. This was better, surely.

'Jerk.'

It was an alright memory. Not a bad thing to think of before death. It was the only real goodbye they'd had. The gun felt a little too heavy in his hand as he gave himself one more moment. Just one.

Then he closed his eyes and breathed in slowly and wished that he'd told Steve everything.

And pulled the trigger.

There was a moment after Bucky heard the gun click when he didn't understand. It felt like waking up, disoriented, to a harsh morning.

It wasn't loaded.

He couldn't stop the relief flooding his terrified mind. He'd wanted to live, after all. But one of the agents was telling him that he was to be brought in alive, that _of course_ they wouldn't have loaded guns, and the relief was overtaken by panic.

He was going back.

Blood and adrenaline were pounding under his skin. Fingernails digging so hard into his palm it hurt. But the pain wasn't real. He was going back. There was nothing he could do. He was going back. He was going back.

'Bucky?'

But now something else was happening. The circle was breaking and people were fighting. In his panicked state it took a while for him to register that he should be fighting too, but before he could there was a hand on his right arm and someone was saying something.

'Bucky? Are you okay?'

He just had to breathe, calm down a little, focus. What was happening?

'Buck?'

'Steve?'

'Yeah, yeah it's me,' Steve was saying, and his eyes were as blue as Bucky remembered, 'thank god. I saw you with the gun and I thought…'

Steve's grip was just slightly too tight on his arm.

'Me too.'

At some point the fight had ended. Steve's friends were watching warily from a distance. Steve himself moved closer, giving Bucky every opportunity to withdraw as he pulled him into a stiff hug with a muttered, 'You're safe now.'

Safe.

Whatever moment Bucky had been waiting for had probably passed seventy years ago. But he'd been stubborn, or scared, or somewhere in between where he couldn't tell the difference. That was all gone now, and all that was left was a pointless lie that he needed to dispel.

'Steve?'

'Hmm?'

'You're my soulmate.'

'I know.'

Bucky finally relaxed, returning warmth of the hug as best he could and resting against Steve's shoulder. It was only when he'd stopped shaking that he realised he had been.

'I love you, Steve.'

'I love you too.'

* * *

><p>'Brave Steve Rogers, scared of a few sparks.'<p>

The taunt in Bucky's words were lined with harmless and unhostile humour, and Steve grinned in spite of himself.

'I'm not scared. I'm just… being responsible.' he looked warily at the firework in his hand, 'I'm Captain America, I have to set a good example.'

'A good example to who? We're in a field.' Bucky gestured with wide arms to the open grass under the crescent moon, trees dark in the distance, 'C'mon Stevie. It won't get too hot. Just light it.'

July had come warm and sweet and still. Independence Day had passed, but only by a few hours, and it never really felt like a new day until the sun rose, anyway. In the soft summer darkness the stars seemed closer than ever.

Bucky called out again, 'You're an old man, Rogers. You're ninety-seven today. You're losing all the fun in your life.'

It would work, they both knew it. Steve was about as resistant to dares as porcelain vases were to sledgehammers.

There was only one space left on Bucky's right arm now, a little patch of clear skin on the inside of the wrist in the same place that Steve's Hydra logo- now blurred and scratched- would nonetheless forever remain.

By the flickering light of the freshly struck match, Steve's face was the brightest thing for miles. Until he lit the firework in his hand and held it above his head as the fuse sparked and fizzled. Three… Two…

For the first time in Steve's life, the flash lined up with the bang. He couldn't possibly get closer, and now there was no lightning-to-thunder pause between the moment the sparks outshone the stars and the deep echo of the noise in his ribcage. The two of them may as well have been kids, laughing and playing with fire. It hadn't been so long ago that they were kids, really. They were young when they went to war and they were young still.

Steve was too busy watching the coloured lights to feel old, and Bucky was too busy watching Steve's awed delight lit up in copper green and magnesium white to notice the first signs of a firework tattoo forming on the tender veins of his wrist.


End file.
